The present invention relates to relays and switches generally, and in particular to a switch device fabricated from a resilient, effectively electrically insulating body and to methods of fabricating such devices.
Electrically operated relays are widely used in a variety of switching applications. Typically such relays are of the electromagnetic type in which one or more contacts are actuated via a solenoid and armature arrangement. While such an arrangement is extremely reliable, its multipart construction results in relatively high manufacturing costs and the necessary solenoid current leads to power dissipation. Furthermore, as it is difficult to manufacture very small solenoids, a high packing density of such relays, for example in telephone switching application, cannot be achieved. Attempts to overcome this problem have resulted in the introduction of the reed contact switch which, while going some way to reducing size and manufacturing costs, still suffers from the disadvantage of power dissipation.